support for writers

Summer Reading

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IMG_3021The Myth of Summer Reading

If you’re like me, you often begin the summer with this image of relaxing in the backyard or by the pool, devouring all of the books you didn’t read throughout the year. Maybe it’s the pervasive myth that things will be easier in summer, that your schedule will magically clear itself to match the weather, or maybe it’s the memory of childhood summers, of having little to no structure or responsibilities, but then none of this ever quite materializes as soon as we pass Memorial Day. Many of us still have to work, and care for children and loved ones, and attend meetings, and do the dishes, and plan friends’ baby showers and retirement parties, and stay engaged politically, and take the cat to the vet, and and and—

The Book Stack (We All Have One)

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Spring Cleaning Your Creativity

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ales-me-663232-unsplash

It’s that time of year when every other article you come across is about spring cleaning—throw it out, donate it, organize, organize, organize! But here at Plume lately we’ve been thinking about the idea of spring cleaning your creativity, so to speak. Just like a home, a creative mind can become cluttered and difficult to navigate. So how do you find your way back to your best creative writing self?

Get Inspired

It sounds obvious, but try reading books and authors that you love, or ones you’ve always meant to read, but haven’t yet. Great writers need to read and take in different ideas and styles of writing. Not sure where to start? Check out this great list of women writers from Powell’s.

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It’s a Girl! Plume’s first featured writer

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If you’ve talked to Melanie or me over the last few months, you know that Plume is ….  well, maybe you don’t know what it is other than something for women creative writers.  We’ve actually been refining our idea, researching the market, and we entered a business plan competition that we hoped would net us some startup funds.  Melanie wrote about those results in the previous post (hint: as writers, we know how to handle rejection).

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Anyway, the judges were so impressed with our plan and our competence that they decided we didn’t need their money (that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it).

Onward!

The core of our subscription is that each subscriber will get a letter from a featured successful woman writer, along with a sampling of her work in the form of an essay, a short story, some poetry, or an excerpt from a larger work.  We have some amazing writers lined up and have been absolutely blown away by their generosity in sharing their writerly advice, and their creative work.

A Plume subscription will also include some encouragement, a writing prompt, some nourishment for your creative soul, and some magic from New Mexico…  join our mailing list so you don’t miss out on our inaugural edition coming soon to YOUR mailbox!

Meet Amy Wallen

Our first featured writer is Amy Wallen.  I’ve known Amy for many years, first as a fellow writer in various groups in San Diego, then as the founder of DimeStories (nee First Fridays).  In fact, when I applied to my MFA program, I asked her to write me a letter of recommendation…  first she asked me, “Do you really need to go to graduate school to write a book?”

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On Rejection

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IMG_2229Ouch

Facing rejection is never easy. Whether it’s not getting a promotion, being dumped by your significant other, having your kid tell you that the dinner you just made is gross, or getting a form letter from your favorite literary magazine saying “unfortunately your work isn’t a good fit for us”, it all can sting.

As creative writers, if and when we decide to submit our work for possible publication, or apply for grants and fellowships, we are going to face a lot of rejection. This doesn’t mean we’re terrible at our craft or we should just quit while we’re ahead and throw ourselves into another creative endeavor that seems far less competitive. It’s simply the reality that getting published and receiving recognition for our creative work is a numbers game. Still, it can rankle. Even the most seasoned writer who has submitted her work hundreds, if not thousands, of times will findthat certain rejections sting a little more. 

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Happy National Library Week!

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jamie-taylor-110195-unsplashLibrary Magic

There’s something magical about libraries. Whether it’s being surrounded by so many books or being in the company of others who are of the bookworm persuasion or maybe it’s all of the childhood memories they evoke–whatever the case may be, I think of the library as my happy place.

As a child, I spent countless hours in my small hometown’s library, reading The Babysitter’s Club, The Borrowers series, and Sweet Valley Twins/High in old bean bag chairs in the library basement. In middle school, my best friend and I would go to the library to sneak read passages of Howard Stern’s Private Parts (We were such rebels!). As I grew older, I kept reading, but I forgot about the public library for a while. I went to college and then grad school, so I always used school libraries. Shortly after grad school, I started working at the local library in my new city. How had I forgotten that such places existed?!

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For the Love of Short Fiction

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IMG_1400-2Do people read short stories anymore? It’s fair to say that they do, but the audience just isn’t what it used to be (in quantity more so than quality).  As Stephen King puts it in The NYT Sunday Book Review, “Once, in the days of the old Saturday Evening Post, short fiction was a stadium act; now it can barely fill a coffeehouse and often performs in the company of nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a mouth organ.”  Ouch.

Novels vs. Short Stories

The part of this shrinking audience equation that always sticks with me is the why of it.  In a world of ever-decreasing attention spans, it’s interesting that the novel, and not the short story, still reigns supreme in the literary world.  They’re called short stories, after all.  You would think that narrative brevity would have a certain appeal for people who often think in 140 character increments. But what is it about short stories that causes a good chunk of readers to shy away?

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Writing Alone, Writing Together

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women writing together

With a hat tip to one of my writing mentors, Judy Reeves, I thought I’d write about writing groups….

image- writing alone writing together book by Judy ReevesThe first writing group I ever attended was a half-day workshop facilitated by Judy Reeves, author of A Writer’s Book of Days, and Writing Alone, Writing Together (and More!) .  It was in 19- 90-something hosted by the first iteration of the San Diego Writing Center.  The 4th Street building was once part of  San Diego’s Chinatown around the turn of the century, a detail that irrelevant, but interesting.  My best friend Karin had invited me…

Judy shared writing prompts and set the timer.  The rules were simple–to keep the pen moving.  We wrote, and wrote, and wrote.  And we shared.  I still remember one prompt: we each wrote a secret, real or fiction,onto a small scrap of paper and put it into a basket from which we chose at random.  One woman, had drawn the secret “He had webbed hands…”  She wrote a story of a monk, who chose the monastic life not for some calling to god, but because of the robes.  He could hide his hands… 

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Reading Challenges

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Stack of colorful books

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
― Stephen King

Keeping the reading spark alive

Sometimes I go through a reading dry spell. Maybe I haven’t found the right book for the moment or I’m preoccupied with a Netflix binge, or I just finished grading 75 freshman comp essays and the thought of even reading a street sign is exhausting.

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